Educator İnandı tortured and his arm broken in 3 places, wife says

Orhan İnandı, a Turkish-Kyrgyz educator rendered from Kyrgyzstan by Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT), was tortured and his right arm broken in three places by Turkish security officers, his wife Reyhan said in a tweet.

According to his wife, Orhan İnandı has not received timely medical treatment and as a result can’t use his right arm.

İnandı, who was the founder and director of the prestigious Sapat school network operating in Kyrgyzstan, went missing on May 31 and was feared to have been abducted by MİT due to his alleged links to the Gülen movement, a faith-based group inspired by Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen. He is the latest victim in a series of cases in which Turkey’s intelligence service has been involved in unlawfully transferring people to Turkey from countries around the world.

Eşim #Orhanİnandı sağ kol dirseği ile omuzu arasındaki 3 kırık sebebiyle ameliyat olması gerekiyordu.

Kırıkların kaynama yapması sonucu ameliyatı olmadı. Tekrar alçıya alındı.

İki aydır sağ kolunu kullanamıyor.

— Reyhan İnandı (@Reyhaninandi) August 7, 2021

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had acknowledged in a statement following a Cabinet meeting on July 5 that İnandı was actually abducted by MİT, lauding the Turkish spies’ efforts in the rendition.

Photos of İnandı in handcuffs with Turkish flags prompted allegations of torture due to İnandı’s visible weight loss and swollen right hand.

An Ankara court on July 12 ruled to arrest İnandı on charges of serving as an executive of a terrorist organization.

In his first public comments on İnandı’s disappearance on May 31, lawyer Halil İbrahim Yılmaz said his client told him that three men who spoke fluent Kyrgyz and were possibly officers of the Kyrgyz police, security services or another Kyrgyz state entity kidnapped him.

President Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement since the corruption investigations of December 17-25, 2013, which implicated then-Prime Minister Erdoğan, his family members and his inner circle.

Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan designated the movement as a terrorist organization and began to target its members. He intensified the crackdown on the movement following a coup attempt on July 15, 2016 that he accused Gülen of masterminding. Gülen and the movement strongly deny involvement in the abortive putsch or any terrorist activity.

According to Şebnem Korur Fincancı, a doctor of forensic medicine and head of the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TİHV), the photos of İnandı point to torture, either torture by hanging or direct blows to the arm.

Human Rights Watch earlier said in a statement that the abduction, forcible disappearance and extrajudicial transfer of İnandı to Turkey by Turkish and Kyrgyz authorities amount to egregious violations of international and domestic law.

“Over the past five years, scores of men alleged by the Turkish authorities to have links with the Gülen movement, living in countries around the world, have been arbitrarily detained and forcibly returned to Turkey,” the rights watchdog said. “There they are incarcerated on bogus terrorism charges in violation of due process rights and international law protecting basic rights including to liberty and security, a fair trial, and freedoms of opinion, expression, and association.”

In several of these cases the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) concluded that the arrest, detention and forced transfer to Turkey of Turkish nationals were arbitrary and in violation of international human rights norms and standards.

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